The Complete Short Fiction (2017, Jerry eBooks) Page 5
Twohy and de Souza, stand guard here. The rest of you, come on.
It’s time to get nasty.’
They descended the stairs.
THE STAIRCASE AND THE HANGAR
The staircase was open-sided, open to the air.
It was actually a tall-and-spindly spiralling structure that hung from the ceiling of an immense underground room. But this spiralling staircase never reached the floor of the hangar—it ended abruptly thirty feet above the floor of the room, at a long straight catwalk that was itself suspended off the floor.
For in the centre of this hangar, on its base, directly underneath the long catwalk, stood the centrepiece of Complex 13.
A spaceship.
THE SHIP
In a word, it was magnificent.
Even under a layer of 50-year-old frost, it was magnificent.
Its lines were streamlined and smooth; its outer shell was silver, armoured and hard. It had two downswept wings, one high tailfin and three mammoth rear thrusters.
Totally alien.
Totally cool.
It was largely intact, except for its great crushed nose—the result of a tremendous crash many years ago.
Filling the vast floor area all around the ship was a huge multi-holed alien structure, like a nest of some sort, or a three-dimensional spiderweb, dotted with thousands of foul slimy holes.
This huge web fanned out from the ship and climbed the walls of the hangar. It too was covered in frost.
All was still.
‘There!’ Armstrong pointed at a small office, also raised off the floor, bolted to the wall at the very end of the catwalk far below them. ‘That must be the lab! Move!’
Down the staircase they raced.
As they ran, more of the man-sized dragons emerged from nests mounted on the walls of the hangar. They swooped in on the double-helix-like staircase—as the Marines descending the stairs returned automatic fire at them.
The dragons squealed, some fell, flapping and spasming.
One grabbed a Marine and hurled him off the stairs, sending him falling a hundred feet into the web-like formation on the floor of the hangar. The man landed in the web, which cushioned his fall, and he survived . . .
. . . for about two seconds.
Thwack! He was grabbed by a fiendishly strong claw that reached out from the nearest hole and yanked him out of sight, screaming. Then—
Crunch!
A foul blast of human blood came spraying out of the hole and the screaming stopped.
‘Fucking hell . . .’ the Marine behind Armstrong breathed.
Armstrong paid him no heed. He hit the catwalk on the fly, just as one of the winged dragons landed on it right in front of him and bared its teeth.
Two booming shots from his Desert Eagle pistol removed the dragon’s head and it stumbled and staggered—headless—before falling off the catwalk, out of his way.
Behind him, another Marine fell.
They were three down, now.
Armstrong came to the lab, found the door locked from the inside.
Four booming gunshots fixed that. The door came free and he kicked it open and entered.
THE DEATH LAB
It was quiet as a tomb in the lab.
No squeals, no gunfire, no blood-sprays.
Armstrong and his men fanned out. ‘Gentlemen! Files, notes, everything you can find. We can’t stay for long! Move it!
Koepp—cover that door behind us!’
As his men went to work, Armstrong scanned the lab—benches, desks, filing cabinets, serum bottles; all of it covered in frost; long abandoned.
An ice-encrusted human corpse lay in a corner—coiled in the fetal position, frozen in death; but whole, uneaten.
‘Doc!’ Armstrong called to his medic. ‘Check him out!’
Doc slid to the dead man’s side, examined him.
‘He froze to death, sir. Musta locked himself in here to hide from the aliens.’
Someone called: ‘Jesus, these records date back to 1938, when the ship was found buried half a mile underneath Tunguska . . . the Soviets believed its crash was the impact in 1908. It had just penetrated deep underground . . .’
Another man said, ‘They brought it inside this facility—and examined it for years, venturing ever deeper into it. Then, in mid-1956, they found the creatures in its innermost chamber. But they were frozen in some kind of suspended-animation unit.
Hibernation units. They were sleeping. And the stupid Soviets woke them up. Within three years, it was all over.’
Armstrong was still standing near the frozen laboratory worker.
Clasped in the dead man’s hands was a large notepad.
Armstrong grabbed it, flipped it open.
The early pages were written in neat, clinical Russian:
‘The extra-terrestrials adore the taste of human meat. Live human meat. They won’t touch the dead prisoners.
Saw the anti-social writer, Polemov, thrown into the ship today. He wasn’t as brave as he was in his anti-Soviet writings! He screamed like a girl as they dragged him across the catwalk and tossed him in.’
And another entry:
‘These creatures do not appear to be the builders of the spaceship. It is well beyond their development. The remains of least nine other alien species have been found on the ship—all dead. Only this species survived. Was this some kind of zoological transport ship in which the animals escaped?
Then this entry:
‘The creatures seem to go through three life-phases: the slug-like infant phase, the dragon-like flying adult, and then the largest phase of all, the enormous super-adults that live in the holes of the large web/mound formation.
The infant phase lasts approximately five weeks. The adult phase, ten weeks. The super-adult phase, another ten weeks. Total life-span, twenty-five weeks.
‘The life-cycle is reminiscent of the common butterfly, only with one additional stage: a small slug becomes a large winged adult which then cocoons again and becomes much, much larger . . .
‘According to Comrade Dr. Karlov, at the fifth week of super-adult life, the creatures give asexual birth to new infants. On present observations, the good doctor estimates that everyone super-adult gives birth to two infants . . .’
But then, late in the notebook, the ordered writing became a frantic, messy, desperate scrawl:
‘We’ve lost control of the complex! Karlov was wrong! It wasn’t a one-to-two ratio at all! Only the first generation had that ratio. The second generation of super-adults gave birth to four infants. The next gave birth to eight.
Then the next: sixteen! They have now multiplied beyond our control and are taking over the complex!’
The final entry read:
‘The order has been given. Complex 13 is surrounded by the Spetsnatz who, along with the outside temperatures, are keeping the creatures at bay. The Complex is now to be buried under a deliberate landslide, triggered by explosives. Trapped in this laboratory, I cannot get out, unless I choose to run the gauntlet of a thousand man-eating creatures. I will die in here. For the hundreds of men I have marched to their deaths, may God have mercy on my soul.’
Armstrong stuffed the notebook into his backpack. ‘I have the breeding information!’ he called.
‘And I have the killing information,’ one of his men said. ‘The Soviets did experiments on them with different temperatures. Heat is no good—they can survive superheated temperatures of up to 1,000 degrees Celsius. No wonder our grenades didn’t work! But they’re not impervious to cold! According to this data, the things can’t survive temperatures below -35° Celsius!’
‘That’s why they’re trapped in here . . .’ Doc said.
‘And that’s exactly the information we need,’ Armstrong called.
‘Now let’s get the hell out of here.’
JOURNEY OUT OF HELL
Out of the lab they bolted.
Dozens of squealing man-sized dragons now filled the air of the hangar.
They came to the spindly metal spiral staircase leading to the ceiling . . .
. . . just as a series of great low growls arose from the floor of the hangar.
Every man froze.
The high-pitched squeals of the smaller dragons stopped.
Then, with a great cracking sound, five large super-adults burst up out of the web-formation on the floor of the hangar!
They were enormous—not only possessed of heads like T-Rexs, but each was the size and shape of a T-Rex, only with huge flapping leathery wings and six free-grasping claws which they used to grab prey. Their heads were utterly terrifying: long-nosed and leathery, with giant jaws equipped with teeth twenty inches long!
And how they moved!
The great superdragon-like monsters soared into the air, swooping around the staircase like giant bats, snapping at Armstrong and his men. They towered over the humans—easily double their size.
One creature bit a Marine clean in half.
Another grabbed two with its claws and stuffed them both into his mouth together.
In both cases the creature in question instantly vomited up its food, spraying blood and partially-digested human remains everywhere in some peculiar kind of eating function. No sooner had the remains hit the floor than hundreds of little slug-like creatures emerged from the web and started eating the shredded remains.
Yet another of the super-adults made for Armstrong himself—but the Finisher just whirled to face it and fired his large-bore Desert Eagle right into the monster’s left eye.
The giant creature’s eye exploded, torn from its socket and the monster squealed and fell out of the air, crashing down on top of its ship, writhing and convulsing.
Now only five Marines remained on the spiral staircase.
Armstrong and two of them made it to the top of the stairs just as two of the super-adults wrenched on the staircase itself, ripping the entire structure from its ceiling mounts, causing the whole high-and-narrow staircase to topple . . . and fall . . . with the last two Marines on it!
Like a slow-falling tree, the staircase fell, crashing down onto the silver spaceship and the web formation on the floor, crushing through the suspended catwalk on the way.
No man would be going down there ever again.
THE RACE OUT
Armstrong found his two rear-guards—Twohy and de Souza—lying dead at the top of the (now destroyed) spiral staircase, their corpses being eaten by three of the smaller dragons!
Disturbed by Armstrong’s sudden arrival, the three mini-dragons looked up from their gobbling—their snouts smeared with fresh blood. Then, with astonishing speed, they made for Armstrong and his two surviving men—Doc and Rockmeyer.
The three Marines ducked as one and the dragons overshot them. Then the Marines turned and firing their MP-5s after the beasts, ripping them to shreds, causing them to peel downwards like three damaged fighter planes.
Running again.
Hard and fast.
Desperate now.
Into the giant receiving dock . . . and Armstrong saw the exit doors and thought of the safety of the outside cold beyond them.
At which point, the super-adults emerged from the depths of the complex. One landed on the concrete floor of the loading dock with a great boom, upturned its massive head and roared fiercely.
The deep-bass sound of its roar shook the walls.
And suddenly, as he turned to look back, Armstrong tripped on a corpse and fell awkwardly forward, flat onto his face.
The fall saved his life—but not so Doc and Rockmeyer.
For as Armstrong had fallen, a super-adult creature had come swooping down and had sliced the other two Marines in half, clean across the waist.
They fell, in pieces.
Armstrong—alone now—ran, staggered, stumbled, the last few metres, clawing his way out through iron doors of Complex 13, under the words abandon all hope, ye who enter here.
He dived into the doorway, into the long tunnel his men had bored, and immediately felt the colder air, spun to look back—
—just in time to see the wide-open jaws of a super-adult come rushing at his face! All he saw was teeth and tongue and the monster’s deep dark yawning throat and then—
CHOMP!
The jaws clamped shut, one single inch away from Armstrong’s nose.
And John T. Armstrong lay there . . . on his butt, on the icy ground . . . right in front of four of the gigantic winged super-adults, these great alien dragons, all of them towering over him, looming over him, glaring at him with their foul evil faces and their bloody man-eating grins.
But they didn’t step forward through the great iron doorway.
Couldn’t step forward.
It was too cold.
Armstrong had made it. Just.
And so he left the tunnel, left Complex 13, with a backpack full of information.
Once outside, he was collected by a long-range pick-up chopper, from which he radioed his prized information back to the States . . .
. . . back to Groom Lake, Nevada . . .
. . . the home of Area 51, the notorious secret base, where a group of American military scientists were currently under attack from a rapidly-multiplying colony of dragon-like aliens that they had disturbed from their slumber in the lone alien ship that was kept in the underground hangar there.
THE END
THE DEAD PRINCE
THE OLD WATCHER
Mont St Michel
France, 1454
Every day for three months, from sun-up to sundown, the old monk watched De Christo as he worked.
This was unusual. All the other inhabitants of the island monastery—monks, nuns and townsfolk—preferred to spend their time gawking at the royal visitors present at the Mount.
But all the while De Christo worked in the cathedral, the ancient monk never let him out of his sight. Bald and hunched and gnarled, his name was Brother Michael, and he was the caretaker of the great cathedral.
Every day he would sit in the front pew and watch as De Christo hammered and planed, rebuilding the flame-scarred structure. Granted, the cathedral of Mont St Michel contained some of the most valuable Catholic relics in all of Europe—including a great wooden cross suspended above the altar from the ceiling which supposedly contained a splinter from the actual Cross of Christ, golden chalices and silver torch-holders. Brother Michael was protecting the silverware.
Every day this happened. Every day, that is, until the morning the Crown Prince’s body was found crucified on the great wooden cross above the altar.
THE BODY
The prince’s death-pose almost perfectly resembled Christ’s. He had been nailed to the gigantic wooden ornament.
And as De Christo—a battle-hardened veteran of the just-finished war—had quickly deduced from the dead prince’s bloody wrist-wounds, he had been alive when this had been done to him.
That the Crown Prince of France—the Dauphin—had been murdered on the grounds of the monastery would normally have been enough to send the Abbott of Mont St Michel into a blind panic.
But this was worse. Much worse.
Because the King was on his way to Mont St Michel.
He would be here in two days.
Whence he would discover that his first-born son and heir to the throne of France was dead.
THE INVESTIGATOR
Fortunately for De Christo, he had been away from the Mount when the murder had taken place—he had taken two day’s leave to visit Bayeux, to see some old friends. He had returned to the monastery on the Monday morning that the body had been found.
Truth be told, this was both fortunate and unfortunate.
Fortunate, because he was not a suspect.
Unfortunate, because the Abbott asked him—as an impartial outsider, as a former army commander, and now as the Royal Architect—to find the killer.
De Christo didn’t much like the idea of peering behind the curtain of life at Mont St Michel—every monastery had its secrets—but he also knew that the King, his friend, would demand an explanation of the killing.
‘I will need complete freedom of action,’ De Christo said to the Abbott.
‘You shall have whatever you ask, Master Builder.’
‘Then let us view the scene of the crime.’
Moments later, De Christo was standing in the cavernous cathedral, beneath its soaring ceiling.
He saw the Crown Prince still hung high, hands spread wide, head limply bowed.
Then he examined every corner of the cathedral—but found nothing of note.
But then, high up near the ceiling at the side of the cathedral, he saw a small balcony. Its rear door was ajar.
After a few minutes’ climbing, De Christo stood on that very same balcony, gazing out over the entire cathedral. It was a splendid view.
His feet crunched on something.
He looked down: and saw several tiny pebble-like stones, each orange in colour. They looked like the crushed pebbles used in some of the paths in the monastery’s gardens.
‘Hmmm,’ he said.
He returned to the Abbott down in the nave. ‘Has anyone left the Mount this morning?’
‘No,’ the Abbott said. ‘The gate records show that not a soul has left the island. It was the first thing I checked.’
‘Which means our killer is still among us,’ De Christo said.
‘Still on the island. Lord Abbott: seal off the Mount. From now on, no-one enters. No-one leaves.’
THE ISLAND MONASTERY
How the Dauphin and his entourage came to be at Mont St Michel was a matter of history. After 116 years of bloody warfare with the English—a war which would later become known as The 100 Years War—all of France was celebrating.
And Mont St Michel—the spectacular monastery-cathedral perched high on its own island out in the centre of the Gulf of San Malo, so high that it was visible for twenty miles in every direction—was to be the focal point of the post-war celebrations.
Three times during the hostilities, the island monastery had held out against English sieges, once against the vicious Henry V himself.